


Singing Your Praises

by kolibris



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Kink Meme, M/M, Masturbation, Praise Kink, Subtext
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-30 02:04:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18305945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kolibris/pseuds/kolibris
Summary: In this Big Bang Burger, we love and appreciate and accidentally arouse Ryuji Sakamoto.





	Singing Your Praises

**Author's Note:**

> For [this kinkmeme request](https://personakinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/993.html?thread=499425#cmt499425):
> 
> _Seeing how much the shit Ryuji gets from people from school, Morgana, and even his own friends, Akira wants to comfort Ryuji, showering him in compliments of how much of a good boy he really is, and Ryuji subconsciously is aroused by it all._
> 
> One day I’ll write something other than Ryuji beating off, but today is not that day. Enjoy!

Ryuji is one bite into his double Big Bang when Takeya, that basketball forward dickhead from 2-C, leans over to his friends and starts whispering. _Sakamoto_ is the only word he can catch before they start laughing to themselves.

He ignores it and crams ten french fries into his mouth.

Across the table, Akira looks up at him, a little concerned. “Does that happen a lot?”

“ _Hrrgmph?_ ”

“Those guys.” Akira nods their way. “You know, they’re… I think they’re talking about you.”

Ryuji swallows. “Hah? Oh, yeah. Probably are.”

“But they’ve been doing it this whole time. Like, the _whole_ time. Does that always happen?”

Ryuji just shrugs. Okay, so it’s definitely going on for longer than usual, because most of the time they eventually get bored and start ignoring him back, but it’s not really _not_ normal for him. He could feel their eyes on him as he studied the menu and wondered if the Asteroid Belt Burger really was on a collision course with flavortown, and he could hear their snickering as he and Akira passed by and picked out their tiny booth. This is just more of the same thing.

And anyways, who could focus on all that crap when the two of them are out together? He can eat his food and tune out everything happening in the background, easy, even the highest spikes of their jackass laughter. 

But Akira doesn’t. His progress into his side of their fry mountain has slowed to a crawl from picking away aimlessly at the top, and then he gets that look in his eye. “I’m gonna say something.”

“Dude! Don’t!”

“They won’t stop unless I do.”

“Don’t say nothin’.”

So Akira glares at them instead, way more openly than he actually should, and when they finally pick up their trays and leave, he turns that glare down at his poor burger that did nothing wrong.

“How come everyone’s always got to be like that? It’s not fair,” he mumbles. “If they really knew you, they’d never talk about you like that. You don’t deserve it.”

Ryuji’s mouth drops some, crashing his fry into his chin, because god _damn_ , he’s so nice. He’s gotta be the nicest guy he’s ever met. What he really doesn’t deserve is a best friend like Akira, who says things like this without even batting an eye, who grabs a burger with him after school like it’s never occurred to him they’ll be seen together.

He can’t even help the grin he gets. “I ever tell you you’re the freakin’ coolest?”

“I’m being serious. It’s not cool.”

“Akira, man,” Ryuji waves it off, “I’m over all that stuff. It don’t matter.”

For a long while, Akira goes quiet and starts messing with the fries again.

“Okay!” He thumps his fist down on the table. “Every time some asshole says something mean about you, I’m gonna say something nice!”

“Huh? What’re you talkin’ about?”

“You know… I’ll cancel it out! They can say whatever they want, but I’ll be there to fluff the hell out of you. One compliment for every piece of bullshit. _At least._ ”

“‘Fluff me’...? C’mon.”

“Wait, imagine the backlog. You must be so behind. I’ve gotta start right now.”

“DUDE,” Ryuji whines loudly, but Akira doesn’t take the hint to quit it.

“I mean it,” Akira says. “When’s the last time someone complimented you? And don’t say your mom.”

“MMMmm,” Ryuji says instead.

“See, so let me do it. Just one. Just let me do it.”

Ryuji throws his hands up. Did he think ‘nice’? Because he really meant ‘annoying as shit’. “Okay, fine! Lay it on me! Gimme a good one!”

“Hmm, well…” Akira adjusts his glasses thoughtfully. “You’re pretty strong.”

“So it all comes down to the muscles, huh?”

“ _No_ ,” Akira retorts, “I’m just saying, it’s cool how strong you are. Don’t flex at me. I’m _saying_ , you can kick a Shadow’s ass, no problem, and I don’t have to worry about it. I can count on you. Oh, and you’ll always beat me at running.”

Huh. He was just gonna let Akira get this crap out of his system so they could move onto something other than his rock-bottom social life, but listening to him talk, Ryuji actually feels pretty chuffed. Like he’s lighter, or something. He might even sit up a little straighter. “...Okay, that was pretty good. Gimme one more.”

From Akira’s reaction, he must also be feeling pleased with himself. “And… I think you’re funny, because you’re always saying dumb crap…”

“Hey! Like you’re not?!”

He laughs, really laughs, and yeah, it feels kinda good to hear too. “See…? You’re so good at making me laugh. Heheh.”

“Asshole.”

“And you’re really loyal. You’re good to the people in your life. Not just your mom, but us, too.” Akira smiles. “Yeah, I like that about you.”

Ryuji gulps. Ah… suddenly, he feels kind of hot. Meat sweats, maybe.

“And… you’re really brave, even when you’re scared. If we hadn’t been in the same cell together, I don’t know what…”

“What’re you sayin’? You were the one who saved me, remember?”

“You straight up bodychecked Kamoshida.”

“YOU pulled an effin’ Persona outta your ass and beat up a guy tryin’ to kill you with a sword.”

“Only ‘cause you were in trouble,” Akira says softly. “All I could think about was helping you. I would’ve been screwed if I was by myself.”

It’s now that Ryuji notices the push of pressure on his dick, poking into the underside of his pants like it wants to stab straight through them. _Nice_. Great time to pop the No Apparent Reason Boner. Not the worst time or place it’s ever happened, but still, really? He can’t even do anything about it, only making a quick half-assed adjustment in his seat, because Akira is still right there and still giving him this completely mushy look.

He honest-to-god even says, “It’s like you’re always there when I need you.”

“O-Of course, dude,” Ryuji says. “Ain’t that what I’m supposed to do?”

“Sure, yeah, but… you know what I mean. Not everybody does that.” 

“I guess…”

Ryuji keeps his eyes on Akira, because the first rule of random wood is you don’t tip people off by acting wildly suspicious, even though it’s a little difficult thanks to his worsening situation underneath the table. In fact, Akira’s the one who keeps looking all over the place.

“Hah, this is kind of stupid, but… when I moved here, I had no idea what to do. Like I was lost or something,” he says. “There were so many more people here, but I just felt so… lonely. But meeting you was like… I couldn’t have made a better first friend than you. Even when people gave us shit, you just kept going and it made me feel better. Like we were too cool for it, you know?”

“Uh… uh huh—” Ryuji fidgets again, “—yeah, man, I get you.”

“I don’t have a lot of friends back home. Didn’t have. I dunno, we weren’t even that close or anything. So this is… pretty cool for me.” Akira looks back up and smiles, small and sheepish. “If you told me a couple months ago that hey, one day I get to hang out with like, athletes and models and student council presidents and by the way, everyone’s talented and good-looking, I would’ve laughed. Like shut the hell up, that doesn’t happen to real people.”

Oh man. What the hell is wrong with him? There’s nothing even remotely sexy about this conversation but he’s growing harder by the second. Hearing Akira say these things about him, in that nice, warm voice of his, is just… it’s kind of...

Akira laughs. “Wow. Am I embarrassing you?”

“Kinda, man,” Ryuji croaks, because admitting that _no, actually, you just gave me a huge boner_ is a thing that’s never coming out of his mouth.

“I can tell. Your face is so red…” Great, hearing that makes the heat rising to Ryuji’s face burn even worse. “But it’s true. How lucky am I? So I don’t get it when people give you trouble because they don’t know anything. They don’t know how good I have it now… being with you. So… I don’t know. You’re just… you’re my best friend.”

He kind of _shivers_ , from the back of his neck to half down his spine, and he can’t do it, he’s breaking rule number one, he’s got to turn away and look at literally anything else while that feeling rushes downstairs at full speed. He makes eye contact with Big Bang Burger-kun instead and shrinks under his adorable, infinite judgement.

But he actually heard Akira say…

“...You’re my best friend too,” Ryuji gets out.

“Sorry, Ryuji,” Akira laughs again, “I’ll stop, I—I keep dumping stuff on you. This is all kinda weird of me to say, huh?”

“N-No! It ain’t weird! I just, uh, it’s just surprisin’, that’s all!”

“Haha, okay then… you all done eating?” He rises up from his chair. “Lemme use the bathroom and then we’ll go.”

Ryuji’s never been so grateful for a piss break in his life. Once Akira leaves and Ryuji’s fairly sure no one is looking his way, he furtively tucks his dick up to his waistband – _fuck_ , he’s hard; he throbs just touching it even this little bit – and wills himself to calm down until Akira gets back. He doesn’t even notice Ryuji’s sudden hyperfocus on the careful placement of his shirt.

It’s alright, though. Ryuji does everything just like normal. He walks with Akira to the station until they part ways by Exit 1 with a quick wave goodbye. The train ride back is uneventful, same as always, and so is his routine once he gets home. He picks up the mail. Drops off his bag. Takes the meat out of the fridge. Leaves the light on for his mom.

And then he throws himself down on his bed with his hand down his pants, fisted around his erection and pumping away fast.

He felt all riled up and it wasn’t going away. What else was he supposed to do? 

Okay, a little weird to beat his meat to his best friend, but it was Akira’s fault for making him feel weird in the first place. And it wasn’t jacking off to Akira, really, just to his words, like when he said Ryuji was loyal and helpful— _stroke_ —and reliable— _stroke_ —and real strong— _stroke stroke_ —and, ah, he’d called him ‘good-looking’, right?— _stroke stroke stroke_ —but best of all was hearing that he was Akira’s best friend too, and Akira sounded like he was so, so _proud_ of him, and…

Ryuji comes hard enough to see stars, and afterwards he realizes he’s shot through his fist and messed up the bottom of his shirt all over and man, he’s gross. Well, whatever – it was something he just had to get out, literally, and now Akira’s voice can leave him too.

By the next morning, he’s good. He’s chill. He is SO chill he walks right up to Akira on the platform and greets him, no problem, except that looking at Akira reminds him of scrubbing the spunk out of his shirt over the sink and his face heats up all over again.

And Akira is nice so he has to ask, “Hey, so, about yesterday… did I make you uncomfortable?”

“Nah, you didn’t,” Ryuji says, since it was maybe the exact opposite. “I’m just not, uh, used to anyone sayin’ those kinda things to me.”

“Oh, okay.” Akira relaxes in visible relief. “Then... maybe I should say them more often.”

“Yeah,” Ryuji says, cheeks still warm, “maybe you could.”


End file.
